Online Tool Store
· 6 min read
Top 3 Relationship Chart Makers Worth Using
Manesh Jayawardhana
CIO & Co-founder
Twelve people, a dozen relationships between them, and a growing suspicion that two of them are the only reason anything gets done. Or twenty microservices where nobody can say which one everything else depends on.
Both are the same shape of problem: a set of entities and the links between them, where the interesting information is structural rather than in any individual entry. Written as a list it stays invisible. Drawn as a graph, the clusters and the isolated nodes appear immediately — which is the entire reason to bother.
How to judge a relationship chart tool
How do you get the data in? Drawing boxes by hand is fine for eight nodes and unbearable for eighty. Typing pairs is faster than dragging, and imports faster still.
Does it surface structure, or just draw? A tool that identifies clusters, isolated nodes and the most connected entity is analysing. One that only renders what you typed is a drawing app.
Where does the data live? Org charts and system maps are internal information. Browser-local storage is a different proposition from an account on someone’s platform.
What are the free limits? Node caps and watermarks are the usual boundaries, and they appear once you have already done the work.
The comparison
| Tool | Best for | Free tier | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| MakeCharts Network Diagram | Building a diagram from a description | Free, no sign-up, PNG and SVG export | Embedding needs a paid plan |
| Soukanzu | Labelled relationships, stored locally | Free core features, HD PNG export | Free tier caps at 7 people; PDF is premium |
| Flourish | Interactive, publishable network graphs | Free plan, unlimited projects, private drafts | Account required; attribution on free plan |
Facts checked August 2026; tools change their plans. Table covers only the 3 alternatives — our tool gets its own section below.
MakeCharts Network Diagram
The most frictionless of the three. It maps people, systems or entities and their connections, and its notable feature is AI generation: describe your network in plain language and it builds the nodes, connections and layout. For a first draft of something you can already explain in a sentence, that removes the tedious part entirely.
No sign-up is needed to create and download a diagram on the free plan, with PNG and SVG export plus shareable links. Embedding in a website requires a Plus or Pro plan, and an account unlocks additional features — but the core diagram-and-download path is genuinely free.
Soukanzu
The most privacy-respecting, and the most limited. It creates cards for people, draws lines between them and labels those connections — friend, rival, mentor, parent, or whatever fits — which makes it the best of the three for relationships that have a type rather than just existing. Popular for character maps and family relationships as much as teams.
Everything is stored locally in your browser with nothing uploaded, and no sign-up is required. The constraint is size: the free tier covers up to 7 people, with more than that, watermark-free export, PDF and AI diagrams at $4.99 a month or $19.99 for a lifetime licence. Seven is enough for a family or a small team and not much else.
Flourish
The most capable, and the most product. Its network charts are interactive and animated with no code — directional arrows, images on nodes, filters and radial layouts — and it is genuinely a publishing tool: charts get shareable URLs and embed codes, which is what you want for a chart going into an article or a report.
The free plan gives access to the full range of visualisation types, unlimited projects and full privacy for unpublished work. It requires an account, and removing attribution for fully branded visuals requires a paid plan. Overkill for a quick internal map; the right answer if the chart is going to be published.
Relation Chart Generator
Ours takes relationships as simple pairs and previews a chart showing clusters, isolated nodes and the most connected entities. The analysis is the point rather than the drawing — you already know who is connected to whom, and what you actually want to know is who sits at the centre and who is attached to nothing.
What it does not do: label each relationship with a type, export SVG, produce an interactive embeddable chart, or store a chart to return to later. For a character map with typed relationships, Soukanzu fits better; for something publishable, Flourish does. Typing pairs is also faster than dragging boxes, which is the trade if you prefer a visual canvas. The formal name for this kind of analysis is social network analysis, and its central measures — centrality, clusters, isolates — are exactly what the chart surfaces.
Which one to pick
- A chart for publication or an embed — Flourish.
- Relationships that need labels — Soukanzu, within its 7-person free tier.
- A diagram from a plain-language description — MakeCharts.
- Finding the clusters and the isolated nodes — the tool below.
How to do it with Relation Chart Generator
- Open the Relation Chart Generator and enter the relationships as pairs, one per line.
- Read the most connected entities first — that is usually the finding.
- Look for isolated nodes; in a team map they are often the actual problem.
- Check whether the clusters match the structure you expected. Where they do not is where to look next.
The walkthrough is in how to map relationships between people or systems. Other productivity tools are in the tools directory.
You might also need
If the relationships come from a spreadsheet, the CSV to HTML Table converter helps you reshape them into pairs first.
For structured data relationships rather than people, the Schema.org Entity Relationship Visualizer covers that specific case.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free relationship chart maker that doesn’t need an account?
Yes. MakeCharts allows creating and downloading without sign-up, Soukanzu needs no account and stores everything in your browser, and ours requires none. Flourish is the exception — it needs an account.
What does an isolated node tell me?
That an entity has no recorded connections. In a team map that usually means someone is not being included, or that the data is incomplete. Both are worth knowing, and neither is visible in a list.
How many nodes before a graph stops being readable?
Around thirty to forty for a chart someone reads by eye. Beyond that, structural measures — who is most connected, which clusters exist — remain useful while the picture itself turns into a hairball.
Final thought
Look at what is not connected before admiring the parts that are. The interesting finding in almost every relationship map is the node sitting on its own at the edge, and it is the one nobody looks for.